


Tangerine Pearl

by RiverDelta



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverDelta/pseuds/RiverDelta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name was Tangerine Pearl. Others said that her master, Bronzite, was defective. A mad Gem only kept around because her writing was so absurd as to be funny.</p><p>Then they couldn't laugh at Bronzite anymore. They instead hid from her as she built a new, brutal regime.</p><p>These are the journals of a Pearl who was treated like a real Gem, and the monster who decided to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangerine Pearl

~~~~

 

 ~~ ~~ **_T_** ** _angerine Pearl's Datalogs:_ **

* * *

_So, this is the first entry of my journal. Bronzite says that I should keep one. I don't know why. What would a Pearl possibly get out of keeping a journal? It isn't as though I am going to say anything meaningful or important. All I am good at is standing around and looking pretty. Besides, Bronzite insists on me being known as "Tangerine Pearl". I suspect that she couldn't afford a Pearl who better suits her coloring, and so is trying to make up for it. I hope she doesn't read this..._

_* * *_

_Bronzite writes nearly every day in that book of hers. She calls it the "Warrior's Manifesto". I've read it. It's ludicrous. It calls the Diamonds corrupt, says that Pearls should be used as soldiers, claims that there are Crystal Gem spies everywhere... I wonder how she's survived this long. It is very funny to read, though. Rambling and nonsensical._

_* * *_

_Bronzite wants me to be like the Renegade Pearl. That is a horrifying notion. That is nothing like what I am or what I am meant to do. I am just a Pearl, of course. However, I cannot refuse my master, and Bronzite's rages are enough to show that I should not refuse her under any circumstances. I do not want to end up like the blue vase she hit with her sword until it smashed into bits when she heard some of the things that Trinitite calls her._

_* * *_

_How could I have been so stupid? It took....things happening...but now I see how wrong I was! I must learn to fight for Bronzite at any cost! I can be a soldier, and she needs someone to help her! She needs a weapon!_

_* * *_

_I keep having nightmares. I keep seeing sewing needles and dreams of carrying things on pillows for real Gems. Then I try and forget them. Bronzite does not like thought-heresy, and I think that it counts if you dream something wrong. Agate worries about me, but I try and act normal for her. I don't want to disturb my master's partner._

_* * *_

_From dusk until dawn, all I do is spar Bronzite, get yelled at by Bronzite, and then, in the nights, act as a sounding board for her brilliant work. I'm starting to get tired. Bronzite can't know._

_* * *_

_It has to have been cycle after cycle, and Bronzite keeps me from learning the time intentionally for some reason. I've been having less dreams about serving as the other Pearls do. That's good. All glory to Bronzite._

_* * *_

_Bronzite's gone. I sit in her apartment doing nothing, practicing sword forms and reading her book. I miss her so much. At least I have her distilled thoughts to comfort me. There's an interesting chapter on modifying Pearl psychology, with notes about potentially having Pearl extruders hacked to command new Pearls subliminally. I trust that she means well with this kind of knowledge._

_* * *_

_I've read her book cover to cover, but each time I learn something new. Today, Bronzite taught me about the inherent evilness of the classification systems and how it benefits the filthy aristocrats. I agree with her. They all deserve to be smashed._

_* * *_

_I don't know what's happening! One day, the rest of the Pearls were doing their normal, worthless activities like the slaves they are (as I am the only free Pearl), and the next the new Pearls are slaughtering anyone they see with spears like...like corrupted Gems. Two Diamonds have been swarmed and smashed by the new Pearls, and the extruders keep making more and more! This is the end of the world! Everyone's either trying to fight the tide or panicking in utter horror! This is a nightmare! Why is everyone dying? Why are there shards on the streets?_

_* * *_

_The strange thing is that some of them seem sane. They don't attack anything they see, but they scream about Pearl liberation and revolution. Should I join them? No. Bronzite has never supported Pearl liberation. I am her weapon. That makes me free enough._

_* * *_

_Today, I saw Bronzite on TV. She made some very important announcements._

_Announcement One: Her New Homeworld Revolutionary Party and its army, as represented by an army of warped Kindergarten gems she gained by subverting both Earth Kindergartens once she was sent there as a prisoner has taken Homeworld. The eyes of these strange Turquoises and Jaspers she has who march like robonoids to her command are bronze and green, stippled with flecks of color and ringed with what might be barnacles. She also has Andalusites, a new Gem type._

_Announcement Two: She has come to save us from the Pearl rebellion, and her armies are already effortlessly dealing with the threat. How strange. I would have thought that if Homeworld's forces were defeated by the sheer numbers, this meager army of slaves would...She did talk about modifying Pearl extruders...No. Bronzite would never do something like that._

_Announcement Three: She has conquered Homeworld, and anyone who says differently will be made to disappear by her new Bureau of Loyalty. Her forces are already purging the planet of Diamond sympathizers as we speak. I can't understand why anyone would be so loyal to the Diamonds, but I suppose that their mind control runs deep. How horrible._

_* * *_

_It has been a while since Bronzite took over. Neither the Diamond opposition nor the sane Pearl revolutionaries have been much, now that she has control of the navy of Homeworld and the colonial Kindergartens in our system. So now everyone hopes that she doesn't put them on the Bureau's list. They have a new kind of Gem, now, who wear black uniforms that look like Bronzite's new regeneration. Slates. They're the secret police. They beat publicly or make disappear...a lot of different kinds of people._

_* * *_

_Bronzite seems so happy, now. She seems to have everything she's ever wanted. She doesn't even train me anymore. She just sits with me in the palace built on the ruins of Yellow Diamond's and we talk about life. Agate. Everything. I'm happy, too. The problem is that sometimes Bronzite talks to herself, and then she stops being happy._

_* * *_

_I know why Bronzite talks to herself, now. I overheard them ranting to each other. She's gone insane. I thought it was impossible. She has a split personality claiming to be from the future. Apparently all of Bronzite's success is due to this future knowledge? I can't imagine it. The other Bronzite calls herself Bronze Diamond, and is trapped in the future in a mirror, Homeworld having seen the "success" of some Lapis Lazuli's imprisonment and imprisoning the failed revolutionary of that timeline the same way._

_I don't know what to think._

_* * *_

_There was a speech, yesterday. Bronzite talked for a while, and a Sunstone threw his knife into her face. Now I'm in the palace, in my beautiful pink and violet-colored room. I hear the voice now. Bronze Diamond talks to me. She says that she told Bronzite that there was an infinite number of her in an infinite number of timelines, and Bronze Diamond would just use what she learned here to coach another Bronzite to hopefully get another result. In other words, Bronzites are as worthless as Pearls, and everything Bronzite's done has been for nothing. Bronze Diamond's just restarting and letting this Homeworld implode into civil war over the throne._

_Now the Pearls, the Diamond loyalists, the successors to the throne of Bronzite's "dictatorship", as she called it, and Sunstone himself all fight for a dead Homeworld, one that was killed by a stupid Bronzite who ripped apart the Diamond Authority._

_These were Bronze Diamond's last words to me, her ancient bronze mirror clear in my mind's eye: "Hey. Sorry about Timeline 7-Delta-62. Anyway, time to find another Bronzite and another Tangerine Pearl! Have fun with this wreck of a planet."_

_I see clearly, now._

_I let this happen. I could have stopped it._

 

 

 


End file.
